The top fourteen design mistakes to avoid when it comes to website design Manchester
When it comes to your business, your website is one of your most important tools – especially as it is open 24 hours a day. It is essentially your storefront, whether you sell goods or services, and can often be the first impression a customer gets of your company. So, you want to make sure you make the best first impression.
As a team who offer website design Manchester one of the first questions we usually ask our clients is does your website delight your customers from the moment they land on it? In terms of usability and performance. Are they able to move effortlessly around your site, and does it load quickly? However, there are lots of other things to think about, and these include:
#1 What is above the fold?
The name of your business and the purpose of your website should be immediately obvious to anyone who lands on your website. When people click through to your website, they want to immediately know who you are and what you offer, so we make sure that your business name and your products or service offerings are immediately clear on your home page.
#2 Page loading time
As a website design agency Manchester we cannot stress enough how important it is that your website loads quickly. Recent research by Kissmetrics showed that 47% of consumers expect a web page to load in two seconds or less – and 40% of people would abandon a website if it took more than 3 seconds to load! That is how important it is! There are lots of things that can really slow down page loading time, but the most common are: images that are too large, clunky code or to too many external links to cloud services.
#3 Is your site responsive?
A responsive site works as well on mobile as it does on a desktop, which means that if people load your site on a mobile, they don’t have to pinch, swipe or zoom in to see the content. Also, when they click on a menu item it should respond instantly as well (see point 2!) A responsive layout also means that the layout will adjust according to screen size meaning that whatever device your customers view your site on they will get an optimised browsing experience.
#4 Is your site intuitive?
When a user lands on your site, is it immediately obvious what they should do? We normally make a list of up to ten actions a user may want to perform on a page and then see how obvious it is to be able to accomplish that. Also, we take into account the fact that most people read content from left to right, top to bottom and so we make sure the most important points are at the top left.
#5 Simple navigation
Users of your website should not have to think too hard about how to move around your website, and how to get from one page to another. The main navigation button should appear on every page, and allow the user to go back down the path they traversed your website on. At the very least you should have a link to the home page on every page, but avoid using too many menus or menu options.
#6 Is your content easy to read?
You won’t believe the amount of websites out there with hard to read content on – from fancy fonts to text on a coloured background that is similar to the colour of the text. Most website agencies in Manchester would agree that the best thing to do on a website is stick to at the most three fonts and a high-contrast text to background colour combo. If in doubt black text on a white background is always a good choice!
#7 Is your text easy to scan?
Are your website visitors able to quickly and easily scan your site to get the information they want? People haven’t got the time these days to read huge quantities of text, especially on your home page, so make sure the text is short, snappy and to the point and use plenty of whitespace so that people can get all the information they want at a glance.
#8 Is your website error free?
Simplicity and accuracy is the key to good website design. So when it comes to your content you need to make sure there are no typos, no grammar mistakes and no missing words. If you don’t trust yourself to pick up any errors, then we can always have a look for you.
#9 Is your site elegant?
Elegance in website design is all to do with white space. White space should be the primary design element so that your site is wide open and friendly rather than having everything crammed together and hard to use.
#10 Is your website on brand?
A common mistake we see is that people tend to think of their website as a separate entity to the rest of their business, whereas in fact it is the glue that holds everything together. Your website is the showcase for your key branding elements, such as your logo, your colour scheme and your preferred font. All of these branding elements should then be used across all of your other marketing campaigns, be they social media or offline items such as business cards or brochures.
#11 How easy is it for people to contact you?
Your contact page is one of the most important pages on your site as is where you turn prospective clients into customers. So, you want to make sure it is as good as it can be. At a minimum it should include a phone number and email address – unless you have a very good reason not to. You should also include your address and post code if you have a physical store. If you really want to make it easy for people to contact you, then put your phone number and email on every page.
#12 Search is key
The word ‘googling’ is now treated as a verb, which shows you how important search is. Typing words into a search bar is a normal action for people to take now, and they will want to be able to do that on site.
#13 Is your site up to date?
Is your website up to date with all of your current information? Have you changed your telephone number? Did you update your site when you did? Have you added a new product to your range? Is it on your website? Make sure your site is up to date on a regular basis or you could be missing out.
#14 Are you using any of these ‘annoyances’?
The following things are things that website users consider annoying:
- Pop up menus
- Adobe Flash software
- Autoplay on videos
If it does, get rid of them.
As we said at the beginning of this article, your website can work hard for your business 24 hours of the day, 7 days a week – but only if it is well designed. Get in touch with the website design Manchester team at SEO MCR today to make sure your website is making the best first impression it can.
